Kai Cenat credits this one streamer as inspiration behind his 4-year rise to stardom on the Tonight Show

Top Twitch streamer Kai Cenat made his first appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and judging by the first few years of his career, it may not be his last.

During his appearance, Fallon asked Cenat about his meteoric rise over the past four years (yes, he only started streaming on the platform in 2021), and the streamer shouted out one of the true OG content creators for inspiring him to make the jump from YouTube videos to live content on Twitch.

“I was doing YouTube for a little bit and then after, I was like, ‘you know what, I wanna start streaming,'” he said. “I was watching Twitch growing up, shout out to Summit, Summit was one of the first ones on Twitch that I was watching. And then as I kept watching and seeing how the communities were, I was like, ‘I wanna stream.’ And then February of 2021, started streaming, and then a mouse ran out in my room, and then we here,” he said.

It’s not the first time Kai has shouted out to Summit1g for inspiring him to stream, and he’s likely one of many who have gone live on Twitch thanks to the Counter-Strike player, but it’s hard to imagine a bigger stage than this for showing some love. Summit himself saw the clip of Kai’s shoutout and was blown away by it, calling it “crazy” multiple times.

Kai’s reference of an early viral clip of his encounter with a mouse while doing push-ups was just one of the stories he told during his appearance. Fallon also brought up his 24 hour streams, and Kai pointed out his 30-day “Mafiathon” marathons, which Fallon was flabbergasted to hear about.

During the last Mafiathon this past November, Kai streamed for 24 hours a day the entire month and broke the record for the highest subscriber count in platform history. The marathon featured celebrity cameos from SZA, Marshmello, Glorilla, Lizzo, Lil Uzi Vert, Kevin Hart, Druski, and more, so this is hardly his first taste of mainstream success. He also attended the Grammys and streamed live from the event.

For Kai and his AMP stream team, it feels like the sky is the limit, with The Tonight Show the latest in a long line of incredible success for the gaming streamer, who also recently completed a marathon of the Batman Arkham series with a number of Warner Bros-supplied props like official Batman suits and Batmobiles.